


Legacy

by unlockthelore



Series: Affections Touching Across Time [20]
Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Banter, Children of Characters, Early Mornings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Introspection, Moral Lessons, Post-Canon, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:40:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24232966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unlockthelore/pseuds/unlockthelore
Summary: An early morning lesson between father and daughter lends to a new understanding of duty, sacrifice, and an unconditional love.
Relationships: Rin/Sesshoumaru (InuYasha), Sesshoumaru & Towa (InuYasha), Towa & Setsuna (InuYasha)
Series: Affections Touching Across Time [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1713493
Comments: 10
Kudos: 80





	Legacy

**Author's Note:**

> In this snippet, Towa is **seven** years old.

**Legacy**

When Towa awoke, it was dawn.

The impending sunrise tinted the sky a cool shade of blue dappled with violets etching to hang onto the deep navy of the star-studded sky. Through the lifted shoji, a gentle cooling breeze swept through her bedroom, sending shivers down her spine as it rustled her hair. A muffled sleep-hazed protest from Towa’s side drew her attention to her younger sister, Setsuna, curled up with her dark hair fanned out across the pillow they shared.

Towa watched for the rise and fall of her breathing, her sister’s forehead smoothing out after their blanket was tugged up over her shoulder. A practiced motion she’d seen her mother do when Setsuna’s nightmares left her troubled. Gliding her fingers over her sister’s cheek, her fingers brushed against the single lock of snow white hair cresting through a sea of black atop her sister’s head. Propping herself up on her arm, Towa admired the shadows cast over Setsuna’s face. 

A face that was so similar to her own and yet not.

While she was the older sister, Setsuna was the younger, and it was evident to almost everyone who met them that though they looked alike — they were _not_ the same. 

Nevertheless, when Setsuna began to stir in her sleep, Towa laid her hand on her sister’s shoulder to calm and remind that she wasn’t alone. Different though they may be, Setsuna would always be her little sister and thusly, her concern. 

Once Towa was sure that Setsuna had drifted back into a deep sleep, she rolled onto her back and stared up at the wooden rafters. She wasn’t used to waking up this early or without the sound of her father’s loyal retainer, Jaken, squawking and quibbling about the day’s affairs. Her nose wrinkled. While some of her lessons could be fun and involved training with her father, the _boring_ ones outweighed them. The Art of Swordplay and history were the only lessons she needed, etiquette and diplomacy were silly. Why did she need to learn how to _talk_ to other people?

Wasn’t that already a given?

But her tutors were quick to remind that to be the future Lord of the Western Lands, it was necessary. After all, her _father_ had gone through the same trials when he was young. Surely, she could do the same. 

Towa wrinkled her nose at the comparison, listening to the buzzing of insects and gentle stirrings in the castle grounds to ease her mind. Regrettably, her thoughts constantly drifted back to her father and the disparity between them. While she was a _peculiar_ kind of hanyō, her father was a daiyōkai and that alone set her leagues behind him. 

_Only a daiyōkai can rule the Western Lands. However, you **are** Lord Sesshomaru’s daughter, and your behavior and aptitude reflects upon him while also sending a message to his enemies. That you are a hanyō already casts doubts — AH, but don’t let Lord Sesshomaru know this, and I don’t mean to say that you’re weak, Lady Towa! I just —_

Cutting off the memory of Jaken’s ramblings, Towa grimaced and lifted her hand to the window. Wiggling her fingers in the light, she brushed her thumb over the tip of one clawed finger. Physical proof that she was a demon despite her rounded ears and the lack of demonic markings, or the whisperings of her father’s council who believed her “hanyō ears” couldn’t pick up their revulsion with her blood. 

Their heedless, grating complaints suspended over Towa’s head like a double-edged blade tethered to a single strand of hair. One false move and it would come down upon her without hesitance. Towa rolled on her side to face Setsuna, finding comfort in her sister’s deep breathing and the shadows cast over her eyes from the dawn’s light. Still, the quiet crept into her thoughts and with it a terrifying thought.

Did her father think the same as everyone else?

Her tongue was thickened and she wanted to shout to the semi-somnolent dark that it was wrong. Her father was many things, but he did not lie. Not to them. And yet, her heart fluttered like a bird desperately trying to escape its cage. Lying in bed grew uncomfortable and if not for Setsuna, Towa would have thrown the blankets from her and bolted out of their room. Instead, she slipped from her younger sister’s side with as much quiet as she could muster. Attempting to make out the dark smudges of silhouettes cast by their furniture as she inched across the floors carefully. 

Cool air circulated through the room and chilled her legs, reminding her of her recent haircut as it caressed the back of her neck sending shivers down her spine. The thought crossed Towa’s mind to grab her haori but she forged it, sliding open her room door and peeking out into the hall. On one end, there was no one. Not even a guard to greet her with a solemn nod or a slight tip of the chin. Only the dawn light shining through the shoji, tinting the walls an almost calming shade of blue.

When Towa looked the other way, her eyes widened. Almost as if summoned from her thoughts, her father stood tall gazing out of one of the opened shoji doors. She could smell the early morning dew and mist upon the wind, but also her father’s own musk and her mother’s which clung to him like a second skin. Careful not to make too much noise, Towa stepped out of her room and slid the door shut, peeking back to see her father glancing in her direction.

His golden eyes, unreadable and half-lidded, were devoid of the disgust and disappointment that twisted her thoughts. However, his gaze swept over her and Towa straightened up beneath the scrutiny. Taking measured, almost painfully slow steps toward him with her feet chilled against the wooden floors. 

“Father..?” Towa called curiously, keeping her voice quiet and small to avoid waking her sister or drawing the attention of eyes in the castle’s halls. She almost half-expected Jaken to appear and trail at her father’s heels while harping about the day’s tasks. 

What her father was looking for must have been found because he nodded approvingly, holding a finger to his lips. “Come with me.”

Without another word, his hand fell to the door’s handle to slide it shut before he turned, starting off on a graceful pivot of his foot. His fur trailing after him like a cloud personally made to be at his beck and call. Towa lingered for all of a few minutes before trotting after him. His shadow was almost imposing, stretching long against the floor’s grain and engulfing her in its chill. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Towa’s fingers twitched and her palms itched to hold onto something. Forgoing tugging at the hem of her undershirt, she spared glances over her shoulder almost hoping that Setsuna would appear and squeeze courage into her palms.

A shift in her father’s shadow startled Towa from her thoughts, his hand visible from the drape of his sleeve was opened with his palm facing her. He said nothing and his hand lingered there but the silence proved more comforting than words. Not that her father had ever been one for many, she thought, hurrying to his side and tucking her hand into his own. 

His fingers curled around her own gently and Towa glanced back at their shadows, smiling faintly. 

“Why’re you up so early, father?” She asked loftily, swinging their hands like the leaves on a windy day.

The castle’s halls were calm and quiet without the guards, attendants, and Jaken about. It was much easier to hear herself think and listen to the inflections in her father’s hum. A telling sign that he was mulling over a response. Without pause, he lead her down a familiar corridor and slid open the shoji allowing the cool early morning air to waft over them. Towa shielded her eyes with a hand, marveling at the lightening sky as the sun began to rise eastward, casting shadows westward as a myriad of colors fought for dominion over the sky and the moon was beginning its descent. 

Her father stepped off the engawa then turned to tuck his hands beneath her arms, lifting her in the air then setting her down in the knee-high grass wet with morning dew. Towa wiggled her toes in the sodden earth and shifted her heels about to feel the grit beneath her soles. While her father wore his boots quite often, he seldom took them off at her mother’s behest. And to Towa’s surprise, he refrained from wearing them today as well. 

It took her a moment to realize her father’s state of dress. His armor, spiked and imposing, wasn’t tethered to his chest and shoulder nor were his blades nestled in his obi. He still wore the crisp white kimono adored with their family’s crest at the sleeve and his hakama, his fur wound about his shoulder and swishing in the breeze, but this was the most relaxed she’d known him to be. 

“I am always awake at this time.”

It took Towa a moment to realize that her father was answering her question, and it wasn’t until he’d glanced down at her that she blurted, “Why?” 

He slid the door shut behind them then held out his hand to her to which she took without argument, following him through the grassy plains which made up the outskirts of their family’s home backed by a generous thicket of trees which shadowed the cliffside where the land met sea. Even as far as they were, Towa could hear the crashing waves against the rocky cliffside and imagined her mother’s dancing as the ocean spray flung into the air with the brackish smell of salt burning her nose. Still, she would watch her mother move with rapt attention. Her steps as fluid as the water itself and with the sun setting behind her, gold catching on the orange and green beads woven into the ornament in her hair — there was a sight no more beautiful. 

Yet now, in the still of the early morning with her father at her side, Towa glanced about at the beds of flowers. Her mother, Aunt Sango and Aunt Kagome had planted them a few years ago when she was still a bit small. Distinctly remembering her mother lamenting the lack of color for such a beautiful place close to the sea. Now, the flowers had bloomed from hill to vale, dotting the grass in scarlet, whites, yellows, violets, oranges, and greens. Towa lingered for a moment to watch as the curving leaves of a red spider lily housed a butterfly with white and black wings reminding her of a kite. 

If her father was bothered by her pause, he didn’t say.

Towa squeezing his hand as she leant forward to offer her finger to the butterfly, remaining as still as she could, even going so far as to hold her breath. The six-legged creature seemed to take notice of her but instead of crawling onto her finger as she’d hope, it took flight into the misty fog drifting overhead. Dejected, Towa puffed her cheek and turned to her father. Catching the barest showing of a smile as his lip quirked then his head canted forward, and she followed at his side once more. 

“There are things that must be done,” her father said to her. Towa quirked a brow, unsure of what he was talking about until he glanced down at her. “You asked why I wake early.”

Her mouth dropped open in remembrance and sheepish embarrassment burned at her cheeks as she rubbed her fingers through her hair, thankful for the tree boughs shading them. 

“But it’s quiet…” She pointed out, tipping her head to hear past the roiling seas. The birds began to sing their melodies, and not a soul stirred in their home beyond their own. Turning her gaze to the sky, glimpsed between the ridges breaking between the leaves, Towa frowned. “The sky isn’t awake either.”

Her father held her hand a bit tighter as she stumbled over a gnarled root, hopping from one foot to the other before regaining her steps. His golden eyes crinkled at the corners as she grinned up at him, swinging their hands anew. 

“The sun rises in the East,” he explained in that wizened tone that captured her attention and turned her gaze eastward although with the sheer number of woodland around them, it was difficult to see the sky let alone the sun. “And it sets in the West, as Lord of the Western Lands, I must rise before the sun and commit to my duties.”

Towa hummed in awe as the path cleaved between the trees, and the horizon opened up before them, stretching further than she could see. Fat wispy grey clouds seemed to take up the sky, and mist rolled across the swirling blue of the sea crested with foaming white. Turning his gaze eastward, Towa sighed. She couldn’t make out the sun past the clouds and knew that foretold rain. And yet, true to her father’s words; the sky seemed lighter and the clouds were a softer shade of white amidst the rolling grey. 

The chill caressed her arms and the back of her hand, noticeable though not uncomfortable. Inhaling the clear flowering scent, the dew on the grass and the salt from the sea, her earlier worries seemed almost distant and if she thought little of them — nonexistent.

“Someday, this will be yours.”

The sudden declaration caught her off guard. Her father’s gaze centered on the horizon and for a moment, Towa wondered if she was addressing him or someone she couldn’t see. Her mother told her that her father had these moments. Where reality fled from him and he would become lost in his memory and contemplation.

“Mine?” Towa asked, squeezing his hand. Discontent budding anew and perhaps it was the lack of the dark’s suffocating presence that pushed the words past her lips.“But Jaken said that only daiyōkai rule and I’m not…”

“In the past, that may have been true.” Her father interjected, a slight curl to his lip bespeaking the likelihood of a punishment for his retainer. “However, times have changed.”

The white of her father’s clothes, hair and fur seemed almost unnatural against the horizon. Delicate greys and blues, muted shadows doing little to take away from the intensity of his gaze. His eyes reminding her of her grandmother’s lanterns, burning brightly with energy untapped and dangerous, but no less beautiful. Eyes, as she was so reminded by her mother and the face of her sister, that were much like her own.

“You are my daughter, Towa.” Her father stated, and the tone in which he spoke those words seemed to drive what she’d already known deeper into her being. “Know with that, you will inherit my title and these lands when you come of age.”

Towa gaped. She’d seen much of her father’s lands accompanying him on his travels but he told her that in years past, it was grander. Her grandfather maintained much of the West but after his passing, they gradually fell into disarray. Still, it was so much land and she could hardly traverse it all on foot without being cradle to her father’s chest as he flew.

And the idea of hearing the mantle of Inu no Taishou made her shudder. 

Her father never looked away from her, not even when a cresting wave tossed over the cliff side and doused him in its chill. His energy, a fluorescent green, reminding her of the northern lights in the mountains quickly drying him as he spoke. “You are a hanyō, but that does not change who you are to me.”

Towa trembled. So that was her father’s intention. She looked away from him guiltily, holding his hand tight enough that her own trembled in his grasp. Those words filled her with both relief and woe. She thought the world of her father. He was a quiet gentle man who loved her mother as fiercely as he did her and her sister. And yet, there was much she didn’t know. Stories she was told of her father’s cruelty and disgust.

To doubt his love for her, even for a second, felt unnatural and not. Hearing those words only hollowed out her chest with shame.

Thankfully, her father turned his gaze away, allowing her to collect her thoughts. Her sigh soft and freeing of the last of her worries, delighting in the soft blue stretching from the east, brightening the grey clouds as the mist faded.

“So when I’m Lord, do I do what you do?” Towa asked, shifting from one foot to the other. Her nose wrinkling as she thought of being forced from her bed earlier than usual. “Even waking up early?”

Her father’s laughter was always quiet. Reminding her of thunder, burrowed deep in his chest. “You will rule as you see fit,” he said, only furthering Towa’s mind.

With a cheeky grin, she bobbed her head. “No waking up early.” Her father glanced down at her with one of his smiles, barely there then gone. “So you do whatever you want? Sounds easy.”

This time, his brow lifted just by a centimeter. “There is work that must be done before I am able to do as I wish,” he said amusedly.

“Like what?”

“Negotiations between myself, human villages and yōkai settlements, requests to be fulfilled or denied, restoration to oversee of the outposts and structures destroyed during your grandfather’s absence to name a few.”

A few, he said, but she thought her head was spinning already. Rocking forward on her right foot, she swung her left outward kicking up bits of dirt as she brought it back. “That… _doesn’t_ sound easy..” she murmured. “I thought being a lord was supposed to be _fun_. Like when mother had us race to A-Un or when we eat sweet bread and listen to Jaken tell stories.”

Her father’s answering hum was contemplative, and Towa hoped he would tell her she was right. All of it sounded like too _much._ “We are able to have those moments _because_ of the work your mother and I do.”

Realization blended with shame and rested hot in Towa’s cheeks as she lowered her head. “… Oh..” She glanced up at him quietly. “I just thought you liked reading a lot.”

So often she would find her parents spilling over scrolls and papers, talking in hushed tones as they exchanged glances or ink stones. Thick aromas reminding her of walnuts and straw, beneath their usual scent when they lingered in their study for too long. It was easy to draw them from the room merely when she and Setsuna entered, her mother often glancing to her father before they abandoned the texts to play with them.

Her father smoothed his thumb over her knuckles, his fingers warm against her chilled skin. “I prefer reading far more interesting things than reports from scouts,” he said, cradling her hand in his own, his fingers pressing to her wrist. “But I do so to ensure you and your sister, as well as all those in the Western Lands are taken care of.”

“Everyone?” Towa mumbled, grateful for his warmth and huddling closer to his side as a breeze swept over the cliff side.“Even the people who don’t like us?”

“Yes.” Her father let go of her hand, instead settling his hand against her shoulder, allowing her to linger beneath the drape of his fur. “They are still our responsibility.”

Towa frowned at that. “Why?” She asked, almost bitterly, her fingers curled in her father’s pants leg. The white fabric clutched tightly as she was sorely reminded of Setsuna’s tearful gaze as she returned from some of her lessons. “They don’t like us, and they don’t want us to look after them or be around… so…”

Sickeningly saccharine smiles from humans in villages her mother visited, idle whispers that caught her ears and the occasional rock thrown caught in her hand but never claimed by the one who threw it. Some held disdain for them even knowing her father’s name and all of the good he and her grandmother had done for them. Jaken often squabbled that humans were ungrateful but he dared not say the same for the yōkai in her father’s court, fearful of their wrath.

Still, it was one of the few instances that Towa agreed with the imp.

Her father’s fingers brushed through the curled ends of her hair, beckoning her to look up at him. His brows furrowed, lips thinned. Displeasure was her immediate thought for how he regarded her but there was something akin to understanding and almost _sadness_ that she couldn’t quite grasp. 

“Regardless of their feelings toward us, Towa, they are still innocent. Simply because we do not agree does not mean a death sentence is earned.”

Towa sighed, glancing away from him to the cresting waves. She didn’t want anyone to be hurt but it wasn’t fair. How could someone inflict harm on her family — her _sister_ — and expect no retaliation? 

“You have seen how yōkai and humans alike regard your mother. Many believe her to be unfit for her position, and yet she looks upon them with the same smile.”

Towa looked up to her father. There was always a softness to his expression and his voice when he spoke of her mother. As if he were remembering something pleasant, a broader smile, still small and unassuming on his lips.

“But why?”

“I asked the same,” her father quipped dryly, only confusing her further. Glancing at her from the corner of his eye, he sighed. “Your mother wishes to be the strength of those around her. No matter how cruel the world may be, she lends her hand to others to help them through troubling times.”

Towa glances down before turning her gaze to the cliff’s peak. Her mother’s dancing at the cusp of her mind’s eye. Like the sun, like light itself, she illuminated everything. When Setsuna came to her, her mother reprimanded the ones who made her cry. When Towa threatened to throw the rock as it’d been thrown to her, she glimpsed her mother watching her patiently and let it slip from hand and mind. Even her father seemed to seek out her mother when he was drifting away into his memories, touching his forehead to her own as she whispered words that not even Towa could hear.

It was all so overwhelming. Lingering in her father’s shadow, blinded by her mother’s light. Her hands trembled, curling in the thin layer of her undershirt before lifting. “Father, can you hold my hand?”

Without question, her father reached down to take her hands in his own but instead of holding them, he lifted her up beneath her arms and held her hiked up at his side. Towa quivered, rubbing her cheek against the silk glide of his hair and turning away from the sky with her nose buried against his shoulder. His hand settling on her back while the other kept her hoisted, tucked beneath her knees.

“There is no guarantee of an easy path,” he said, rubbing her back as she tightened her hold on him. “But you will not have to walk it alone.”

Unsure of what she feared more, loneliness or ruining all that her father and grandfather had, Towa whispered against her father’s neck. “What if I can’t… be like you or mother?”

“We don’t wish for you to be us,” her father patted her leg, hugging her tightly. “We wish for you to be you. You will view things differently than we do, and you will handle your role in a way that only you can. Exist in a way that is all your own.”

Towa felt the words tumbling out of her before she could stop them, leaning back to look into her father’s eyes. “But what if I mess up..” she stammered, clutching his kimono tightly. “Or if I do something wrong?”

“You will learn from your mistakes and we will be there to lift you when you fall,” her father said with an echoing finality that shattered the little doubt remaining in her stomach. Towa sniffled, closing her eyes tightly. Pressure built and the light tap of her father’s forehead against her own sent it spilling over. “For now, live how you wish.”

It wouldn’t have been hard for someone with a trained nose to pick out the difference between the salty ocean breeze and her tears but if her father noticed, he didn’t say. Only hugging her close to him as he carried her back.

“Father?”

“Mm?”

Towa opened her eyes, amazed by the light blue as the sun beams finally reached the western sky. “Thank you.”

* * *

  


Sesshomaru tipped his head back just a bit to enjoy the crisp breeze whistling through the trees. Jaken’s voice, carrying through the field, drew his ear but his eyes remained on the slow creeping form of his daughter as she moved through the tall grass. A barely noticeable twitch of the lips as she looked back to him, magenta eyes questioning with the desire for encouragement. Sesshomaru glanced aside at Rin curled up and leant against the trunk of a tree, flecks of golden sunbeams streaking through her hair, as she flipped through a dusty old tome propped up on her legs as their younger daughter, Setsuna, dozing at her side.

Glancing back to Towa, Sesshomaru gave a faint nod and watched with no small amount of pride as she edged upon the unsuspecting imp mouthing off at two stablehands who seemed unamused with his puttering. Towa’s shoulders hunched and she readied to pounce, and if not for decorum and wanting to avoid his wife’s attention, he would have muttered the word aloud.

 _Go_.

As if she’d heard him, Towa leapt through the air and tackled Jaken to the dirt in a tangle of limbs and pitched cries for help as the girl mercilessly tugged at the imp’s ears and rubbed her knuckles to his head. The stablehands shared a conspiratorial look and went back to their tasks as if nothing was amiss. Sesshomaru felt the briefest urge to laugh and a tiny tremor in his shoulders, quelled as he heard a soft befuddled sigh as Setsuna stirred. 

By the time Towa had her fill, Jaken was sprawled out on the grass with only the twitch of his fingers and his quiet grumbling to tell he was still alive. Towa sprinted through the grass toward Sesshomaru with her arms outstretched, his hands eased free of his sleeves and offered to her as he swept her up, letting her rest on his shoulder as she leant down to press her cheek to his own.

Perhaps Jaken would think twice before insulting his daughters or his wife, Sesshomaru thought, rewarding his daughter with a nudge of his own. 

They were his legacy after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, this was definitely a labor of love.
> 
> Towa is the first of the children from Hanyou no Yasahime that I took the liberties of writing in **Image** and since then, she's grown on me. In ATAT's universe, Sesshomaru takes control of many territories in the western part of Japan as they were once under the protection of his father, Tōga, and now centuries later he's taken the mantle. It's explained a bit in **Compassion** and while I'm aware that it isn't canon that he's Lord of the Western Lands, it's an idea I find interesting and wanted to play around with as to explain how and why. 
> 
> I digress. Towa and Setsuna are both interesting to me because their father once hated hanyō or at least he proclaimed he did, and he had a very low opinion on humans and in some ways still does. However, their mother ( in this case, Rin ) helped to change his heart just as their birth made him grow and change in his own ways. Still, there are many who remember who he was before and that is the conflict the girls must grow up with. That if things had been different, their father may have hated them simply for what they are.
> 
> Towa, in ATAT's verse, is destined to be the next Inu no Taishou as is her birthright as the eldest of Sesshomaru. Sadly, she has some misgivings and feelings toward his council and the court of inu yōkai who were once loyal to her grandfather and grandmother, and now her father _but_ constantly attempt to belittle her mother and show disrespect to her and her sister. It's going to be an uphill battle of self-worth versus validation _but_ one worth trying for.
> 
> Anyway, as usual, you can find me on Tapas, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Pillowfort at **unlockthelore**!
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
